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Essentialism
Essentialism, aka soul magic, allows the mage to alter their soul and the souls of those they touch. Performing soul magic involves entering a trance during which the caster loses most of their senses, including hearing, Note that Juniper didn't hear them speaking sight, and time. Soul magic and soul mages were used extensively in the Second Empire, and were infamous for altering the values of enemy prisoners in order to force them to serve. As a result, being an unregistered soul mage is a capital crime in the Empire of Common Cause, and soul mages in general are widely feared and hated. Anolia are capable of detecting the ability to use soul magic, and are employed by many institutions in order to ferret out hidden soul mages. Soul magic is closely tied to the other bodily magics- nonanima do not possess latent blood, bone, or skin magic. The soul also functions as the interface for many magical effects, rendering them completely ineffective for a nonanima unless the magic would also normally function on a completely inanimate object. Spells Soul magic doesn't have explicit spells like some other magics. Its use is deeply entwined with the game layer, and many of the abilities it grants Juniper are unlocked via virtues. That said, there are some specific effects that soul magic can create for more than one caster, and those will be listed here. The exact interface apparently differs between casters, (most people don't get Juniper's True Character Sheets) but the results are similar. Value Alteration Casters have access to how much the target values some noun, and can change this amount. The noun itself is somewhat flexible- it can be abstract (freedom) or more concrete (a person). All of the effects created by this method are somewhat symmetric - valuation can be positive or negative, so you can theoretically create the opposite effect by flipping the sign. Value alteration is temporary, but since soul magic doesn't consume resources in practice it's possible to repeatedly alter values enough to make the changes effectively permanent. For example, you can cure an addiction by dropping the associated value closer to 0, or make someone hate someone else by dropping their value deep into the negatives. Uses seen so far include: * It is possible to get loyalty from a subject by making them value the caster or some other person or institution far more than anything else. * It is possible to create/cure addictions by manipulating the value of a sensation. * It is possible to cause the subject to want a romantic relationship by changing the values associated with romantic or sexual attraction for that person. Note: the offer to show Juniper where to make the change only makes sense if she's fairly confident it won't hurt his relationship with Fenn, so I'm assuming that the dials are specific to each person. Body Structure Alteration The soul contains a blueprint for the body - it isn't always accurate, but it's what the body builds towards when it heals. The blueprint can be altered directly via soul magic, or indirectly by the burning the bones of a living creature, or by other more exotic means. Pelehr Pelehr are created directly via soul magic. They have a body that's optimized for combat, and a mind to match. Skeletal System Fallatehr claimed that bone magic works by adding a piece of one thing's soul to another's. Regardless of the exact mechanism, burning bones will damage the soul's concept of the bone in question. In addition, soul mages can cure a drained bone by copying a healthy one into the correct place. These copies can be obtained from other creatures, or by mirroring one of the caster's bones from the other side of their body. Skill Alteration Skill alteration has been targeted heavily by exclusions. In the past, it was possible to copy skills between people, create custom or gestalted skills, and much more. In the present, we see skill alteration used to permanently lower one skill in order to grant a temporary bonus to another, and to permanently reduce the level of other's skills. These temporary bonuses are useful to Juniper because they provide virtues and can break stat caps, but the most common use in general appears to be removing the caster's own ability to use soul magic in order to avoid execution. Soul-Bonded Tanks It is possible to us soul magic There's a lot of circumstantial evidence for soul links being created through soul magic, like the name and the presence of officially registered soul mages, but this is the most direct. I'm going to mark it as not speculation but it's close. to create a bond that makes one person take damage that would have been dealt to someone else. This is fairly common for adventuring parties/fireteams, and can be used for bodyguards. Self-Knowledge Soul mages of sufficient skill can learn to see their lineage, invested entads, and True Name. It's possible that an even more skillful soul mage could see the same in the souls of other people . Essentialism in the Game Layer Essentialism's primary attribute is WIS, and its secondary attribute is KNO. Essentialism is tied very heavily to the game layer in general- the Guild of the Essential Soul apparently knew about stats and skills- but Juniper in particular gets access to what he calls his 'True Character Sheet'. In addition to the skill manipulations noted above, Juniper thinks that he can freely transfer up to 1 stat point per 10 levels, and respec himself once per (100 levels/skill in Essentialism) by swapping out learnable skills (as long as he stays at the maximum of 40). Essentialism also tells Juniper the primary and secondary stats associated with every skill. Essentialism's virtues are: * '''Soul Slip, 20: '''Allows you to make new modifications and alterations within the soul. Allows you to alter that which had been unalterable. * '''Soul Sight, 40: '''Grants a visual representation of souls, each with a unique color, which can be distinguished with acuity beyond the limits of the eye. Applies to both the soul and any magic which interfaces with a soul in some meaningful way. * '''Soul Saturation, 60: '''Knowledge of your soul allows it to fully suffuse you, giving a number of benefits to a wide variety of magic. Your blood works as an infusion for the purposes of pustule magic. You can use your blood as though it were magical ink (4 ζ /mL) for the purposes of ink magic. Your bones are considered wood for the purposes of wood magic. Required connective power for plants is reduced by half. You may retract your soul from your extremities for the purposes of bypassing wards. Any magic items or magics which limit projection or application to your eyes, hands, feet, or mouth, can instead be projected or applied from any part of your body. Your skin and/or carapace is treated as though it were skin and/or carapace for the purposes of skin magic and carapace magic, whichever is more beneficial. Runes may be written on your skin as though it were prepared vellum. More benefits apply in specific exclusion zones: consult the manual for more detail. * '''Soul Scaphism, 80: '''You can carve out parts of other people to use for your own purposes. Any benefits are temporary; any costs are permanent. * '''Soul Symbiote, 100: '''Double your effective skill in Bone Magic, Blood Magic, Skin Magic, Carapace Magic, Pustule Magic, and the flower magic aspect of Horticulture, up to a cap of 75. Double your effective connection to any magical item which interfaces with your soul, unless doing so has associated maluses. Increase your skill with any specialty or subschool of magic that uses the soul by 20 points, up to a cap of 50. The Twinned Souls companion passive also creates a link between Juniper's soul and the companion's, which allows him to access their soul without touch and regardless of distance, but this link does not work on companions who are dead or lack a soul in the first place. Excluded abilities Essentialism is in an interesting spot as far as exclusions go. Most of the magic exclusions that we see (glass, ice, illusion) target the entire magic. Essentialism, on the other hand, has over a dozen exclusions carefully carving off bits and pieces of the skill. They include: * The ability to change the primary or secondary abilities of skills. * The ability to copy the caster's soul. * The ability to double any information within the caster's soul. * The ability to copy skills over to other people. * The ability to create additional bones in the caster's body. * The ability to lower abilities below zero. * The ability to lower skills below zero. * The ability to lock the caster's soul as it is. (but see Still magic for a workaround) * The ability to edit the caster's bloodline, presumably for the purpose of entad inheritance. * The ability to edit the caster's species. * The ability to take unique magics from another’s soul. * The ability to create skills. * The ability to gestalt skills. * The ability to modify the caster's True Name. * The ability to bring the dead back to life (in several different ways) Known Practitioners *Amaryllis Penndraig *Fallatehr Whiteshell *Juniper Smith *Heshnel Elec was a soul mage in the Second Empire, before he had to carve the skill out Category:Magic